My cost of college, 1969 and 2019

Gaby graduates from UCLA, June 2021.

"My" cost of college refers to the fact that I was able to pay for my own college -- nine years in all -- starting in 1969 and I was able to pay for Jane and Gaby's college -- eight years in all -- starting in 2014.

In June 1969, I received a $1,000 American Legion scholarship at graduation, spread over the coming four years of college. Having previously earned a New York State Regents scholarship, which was a $200 a semester grant to help pay for my $400 a semester tuition at SUNY Binghamton, I effectively garnered $650 a year in scholarships for an $800 tuition that remained relatively unchanged over four years, meaning $150 a year in out of pocket tuition costs, which I paid primarily wit a summer job at Bethlehem Steel in the summer of 1970, after strike-shortened spring semester at Binghamton. That summer I netted about $2,000, even with a base wage of about $3 an hour, maybe $4. I remember the week of the Fourth of July, where preparing for an inspection by señor management, I racked up about 72 hours that week and grossed about $650, which also showed me in harsh terms the high cost of taxation on such high weekly earnings.

In August 1973, I started my two-year MBA at SUNY, funded by a $2,400 annual stipend -- $200 a month, tax-free! -- yet that stipend was only the beginning of how I 'paid' for the MBA. First, as a graduate assistant (my first year I was the 'TA' for Jack Duffy's large lecture OB class, and I led three fifty-minute a week on Friday 'discussion' sessions, besides attending every TuTh 75-minute lecture), which earned me a full tuition waiver/scholarship, which also meant I have no memory as to the nominal tuition. It must have been about $1,000 a year, yet it was of no concern to me. In addition, working for my residential college coordinating the 'night security' program staffed by resident students, I received a free single room and either half or full board, making the out-of-pocket cost of room and board negligible. But it gets better, or perhaps worse. I worked in the campus pub most weekends and for the first two weeks of school I even worked in the dining hall for the dinner shift, as the 'milk and salad' replenisher. It was almost profitable for me to stay in school. And, oh yes, I enrolled in and passed twenty hours of graduate credit in each of the two semesters of the 1973-74 school year.

My second year I moved off campus with Gary Levine, paying $120 a month -- $60 each -- for 32 Schiller. Again, free tuition and the $2,400 stipend, along with the job in the campus pub, meant another break-even at worst year for me, and I even inherited Grandma Heath's 1970 Chevrolet Concours, which cost me gas and modest insurance, and gasoline was about fifty cents a gallon.

In August 1975 I started my three-year doctoral path. Housing the first two years was shared, costing me about $100 a month. The third year I lived alone, at $140 a month. Again, free tuition and this time a stipend of $4,800 (subject to an irritating 1% tax from the borough of State College). I gave up the Chevy after two years; parking a logistics were big problems around campus. Having a car allowed me to spend more money than had I had to walk everywhere; I found myself much happier in the third year, living on College Avenue, sans auto, with Weis groceries on the corner and my offie and classes at most a ten-minute walk from home. In fact, in the fall of 1977 I once woke at 7:50 and made it on time to my 8:00 class I taught in the engineering building literally across the street from my studio apartment. The Corner Room was on another nearby corner, less than a hundred feet from my front door. Across the street from the Corner Room and even closer to my studio was the little newsstand with daily papers from New York, Washington, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, along with cheap muffins. That year, 1977-78, was almost decadent, topped off by the iconic Mr. C's disco, another fifty feet past the Allen/Corner Room, and I was even able to manage and afford a monthly charge account for my bills and made good friends of waitresses who found me a table even on busy nights.

Fifty years later, paying for college for Jane and Gaby was an entirely different story, save the fact that I was very fortunate to be able to leverage my Loyola employment to earn the benefit of free tuition for Jane at Marquette, saving me about $150,000 of after tax money over her four years, while costing us about $80,000 in other expenses over those four years. Gaby's all-in costs for UCLA were about $250,000, also after-tax money, so my best estimate is that it took a half million dollars in salary to pay those out-of-pocket costs, while also earning that $150,000 in untaxed benefits for Jane's Marquette tuition.

So what an incredible difference fifty years. And it illustrates one part of the two-part insanity of higher education today, one part being the almost worthless elements of much of the college degree today, along with the 'woke' indoctrination received, and the second part being the $300,000 cost of a four-year private college degree.